The Captive Heart by Bertrice Small

aren’t a virgin.”
    Alix climbed into the bed. “Good night, Bab” was all she answered. Then she watched as the servant snuffed all the candles but the one she carried, and departed the chamber. The room was cold, Alix noted, but then, of course, since Hayle would want total darkness there was no fire to keep her warm. The bed smelled fresh with lavender. The pillows were plump behind her. She drew up the coverlet and closed her eyes, but she could not sleep. As she lay there alone and in the dark Alix considered what was to come. She knew what to expect. Her husband would stuff his manhood into her female sheath and expel his seed. With good luck he would get her with child quickly, and she would be quickly quit of him. He would futter her to get the son to please his father. There was nothing more to it. She wished he would come and get it over with, for she was tired and wanted to sleep. Would he remain with her? Would he do it more than once? At court she had overheard two women in the queen’s apartment speaking of one of their husbands. He had fucked her, the first told the second, three times in a night, and the two women had giggled like girls. How many times did it take a man to get a woman with child? Alix wondered. That was not a part of her knowledge.
    Finally the door to the chamber opened, and she saw him in the light from the hallway torch, hesitating a moment before coming in. “Do not speak,” he told her as he shut the door behind him.
    Alix remained silent, as bidden. The bed sagged as he sat upon its edge. She heard his boots hit the floor as he removed them.
    He pulled back the coverlet, saying as he did so, “Spread your legs open wide, whore,” and when she had, he climbed atop her. “Now put your arms above your head,” he further instructed her. “You will make no move to impede my actions.” Reaching out, he squeezed one of her breasts, pinching the nipple hard. “At least your skin is soft,” he noted as he ran his hands over her body, “and you smell of flowers.”
    Alix felt him adjusting his position. She felt his bare buttocks against her thighs as he leaned forward, his fingers and hand seeking. And then she felt it as he found the opening to her woman’s sheath. As he leaned forward, she realized he was wearing his tunic robe and had just hiked it up so his male parts would be free. Alix felt she should be doing something, but she didn’t know what. He thrust into her, and it hurt. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as he kept pushing himself into her. But then he thrust hard, and Alix could not prevent the scream that tore from her throat as a sharp pain engulfed her. She began to weep.
    “You didn’t lie to me, whore. You were a virgin,” he said as he began to piston her in earnest, grunting with each stroke of his cock until she felt him stiffen above her and groan with the sound of pleasure attained. Then, climbing off of her, he said, “I’ll be back in the early morning to fuck you again. And I’ll keep fucking you each day until you ripen with my child. Then we can be quit of each other.” He sat on the edge of the bed once more, pulling on his boots, and then left her.
    Alix began to cry in earnest. He had not kissed her, or been kind at all. He had behaved like a stallion brought to stud. Surely this was not the way all men and women behaved with one another? She remembered her mother’s face once when she had come from the bedchamber that she shared with her father. It had been soft and dreamy. Alix remembered saying to her mother that she looked particularly beautiful at that moment and Blanche responding that when a woman was well loved she glowed.
    “You will understand one day, ma petite ,” her mother had told her, smiling.
    And had the queen not said that a woman could feel passion even if she did not love a man? But all Alix had felt was pain and degradation. She suspected it was all she would ever know from Hayle Watteson. Alix pulled the